Being charged as Imperial and not Metric for Gas

MAY2011

I wonder if anyone can help me work out what British Gas will owe me.
I rang them tonight as I had my meter read on the 14th Aug and havn't yet received bill.
The very very helpful lady I spoke to looked at my account, and asked me to read my meter. I did, then she asked me for the meter ref no, I gave it to her and it did not tally with what was on my bill.
My meter was changed by BG on the 12th June 2006 which is around the time I changed to N Power for about 6 weeks and then changed back!!
It turns out that since that time I have been charged for my gas as if my meter is still Imperial when in fact its Metric.
I have paid just them over £5000 in 3 years but I'm not sure how to work it back to calculate what they owe me.
The first meter reading when I changed over was 487 - now on 6819.
I have kept all my bills.

It may seem stupid that I did'nt notice, but with the papers full of the cost of gas being on the rise, plus crap summers and cold winters, and I am nesh I did'nt think that they were wrong.

stewie_griffin

You will have paid them 2.83 times too much so if you've paid £5000 expect a large refund

MAY2011

Really - Wow, wonder if they will pay me interest lol

Now I feel really stupid been paying £200.00 a month for Gas.
Another reason I did'nt think it was wrong was that my newphew plastered the downstairs loo where the thermostat is and disloged it, so the heating did not switch off for a few weeks until we realised.
So when I got a gas bill for £1800.00 I thought this was due to the dodgy thermostat.

I think I will spend some of the refund on some flowers for the lady at BG who spotted it, this could have gone on forever.

Cardew

6,332 metric gas units(6819 - 487) are approx 71,000 kWh.

6332 Imperial gas units are approx 202,800kWh

So you have paid for an additional 131,800kWh


To work it out accurately you need to get each bill and divide every kWh total by 2.83 to get the accurate kWh. Then use their kWh price for those units.

e.g. your bill states 2186kWh @ 2.94p = £64.27.

Divide that by 2.83 and you get £22.71

Don't forget to divide the VAT(shown as a separate charge by BG) total by 2.83.

Because of the Tier1/tier2 system you cannot take the £ total and divide by 2.83 although that would be pretty close. So £5000 paid would mean a £3230 discount.

Vestra

You have used about £3000 with those readings on a metric meter so they may give you a refund of about £2000. But you will need to wait and see really. Make sure they recalculate the bill at the correct prices and not at todays prices.

SwanJon

MAY2011 wrote: »

I think I will spend some of the refund on some flowers for the lady at BG who spotted it, this could have gone on forever.

I'm sure she'd appreciate it - even just a letter saying thank you form a customer can make someone's day.
(If you'd had a bad experience I'd suggest feeding that back too.)